Operational management is applied for the maintenance and the administration of computer systems and applications running on computer systems. Operational management is further applied to networks, in particular to large scale networks such as large scale computer and telecommunications networks, and refers to the maintenance and administration of such networks. Operational management can be understood as the execution of a set of functions required for controlling, planning, allocating, deploying, coordinating, and monitoring the resources of a network, a computer system, or an application. This includes, for example, performing functions such as initial network planning, frequency allocation, predetermined traffic routing to support load balancing, cryptographic key distribution authorization, configuration management, forward management, security management, performance management, bandwidth management, and accounting management.
In order to carry out operational management, an operational management system is typically employed. An operational management system comprises operational management software. The operational management software of an operational management system used to monitor a network is executed by a computer in the network. An operator/administrator of the network is then able to interact with the operational management system via a human machine interface provided by the operational management system. Software and hardware components which are managed and monitored by the operational management system are represented within the operational management system as objects.
The operational management system further comprises a central management server and one or more agents. An agent is a software component and can be seen as part of the operational management software. An agent is used to monitor an object defined in the operational management system. In order to do this, the agent is installed on the component relating to the object, or if the corresponding component is itself a software component, the agent is installed on the hardware component hosting the software component.
An agent monitors the corresponding object according to specifications given to the agent via one or more configuration files. A configuration file is also called a policy file or simply a policy. A configuration file contains detailed technical information on how the object is to be monitored. Parts of the technical information are parameters and parameter settings according to which the object is monitored.
An object might for example relate to a router of a network. A parameter specified in the technical information of the configuration file might then relate to the maximal data rate allowed to flow through the router. The corresponding parameter setting might specify the data rate to be 5 Megabytes (MB) per second. The agent then monitors the router and sends, for example by use of the simple network management protocol (SNMP), the management interface protocol (CMIP) or the Java management extensions (JMX), an alarm message to the operational management system in case the actual data rate through the router exceeds the maximum allowed data rate. The network management software of the network management system further alerts then the system administrator for example via the human machine interface.
Different agents require different configuration files with respect to the technical data they provide and even with respect to the file format and the internal structure of the data files. The provision of the configuration files from the central management server to the agents of the operational management system requires therefore a relative large amount of resources as the operator must set up each configuration file separately for each application or managed resource monitored by an agent. Furthermore each configuration file must be provided separately in the correct structure and format to the corresponding agent.
There is therefore a need for an improved method of generating a configuration file. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved data processing system for generating a configuration file.